pyCologne Python User Group, Cologne, Germany, August, 12th Notes

The Python User Group Cologne (pyCologne) met on August, 12th at the computer centre of the University of Cologne. The meeting was attended by 17 people. German speakers might want to refer to our wiki page http://www.pycologne.de.

Flyer

The pyCologne-Flyer is ready for print!!! Klaus Bremer introduces its contents:

• The three inner pages contain information about Python.
  
• The title page shows the pyCologne-Logo and short information about pyCologne.
• The remaining pages contain a short description of pyCologne and contact information.

Please see the flyer on: http://wiki.python.de/User%20Group%20K%C3%B6ln/Flyer

Todays Talk: How to automate and extend Windwows-Applications with pywin32 (Andreas Schreiber)

Andreas introduced the pyWin32 Module, which makes it possible to communicate via the COM-Interface to Windows-Applications.

• COM uses the Client-Server-Model
• Nearly each peace of software on Windows provides a COM-Interface, mainly the Office-Applications.
• It is possible to "remote control" applications. Andreas presented an example which controls Word via the Python-Command-Line.
  
• Moreover, COM makes it possible to register Python-Code for events of Office-Applications: Andreas showed an example which catches the "turning-page"-event from a Power-Point presentation and sends the page heading out to Twitter.
• It can be quite difficult to examine the COM-Interface provided by different applications. There are some tools available like COM-Browser and makepy. Moreover, it is a good idea to have a look into the help-file of the application, which often contains an application specific documentation of the COM-Interface.

Details in German are available on: http://wiki.python.de/User%20Group%20K%C3%B6ln/VortragWindowsAutomatisierung

The announced talk "MIDI-Programming using Python on Linux/ALSA" unfortunately had to be canceled because Chris was ill.

Announcements

• September, 19th: Software-Freedom-Day: Linux-Install-Party at Odysseum (Cologne, Germany). Further information (in German) on: http://pv-rheinbogen.de/CcpWiki/InstallParty2009

• September, 20th: Tag der Luft- und Raumfahrt (Day of Air- and space travel) at DLR (Cologne) . Please find further information on: http://www.dlr.de/tdlr/
  

• September, 14th to 18th: "Grok Neanderthal Sprint" at GFU in Cologne.

The minutes of the meeting in German language can be found here.

The next meeting will be held on, Wednesday, September, 9th.

Most of the participants enjoyed the rest of the evening in our usual italian restaurant having food, drinks and friendly conversation.